Why Everyone Is Freaking Out About The Latest Instagram Update

Yesterday, the ‘gram launched “Instagram Stories,” which lets you share photos and videos with your followers that go away after 24 hours. “You’ll see stories from people you follow in a bar at the top of your feed — from your best friends to your favorite popular accounts. When there’s something new to see, their profile photo will have a colorful ring around it,” Insta posted on their blog.

Sound familiar? That’s because this new feature is basically Snapchat. Even CEO Kevin Systrom knows this is a rip-off. “They deserve all the credit,” Systrom told Tech Crunch of Snapchat. But then he also said in the same interview, “This isn’t about who invented something. This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it.”

And to make things even more complicated, Facebook, which owns IG, once tried to buy Snapchat for $3 billion. That didn’t go through and now Snap is valued at around $20 billion… for now. Only time will tell if people will switch over to Instagram to post videos of their breakfasts and daily commute.